School bus transportation of small children, especially, exposes such children to inherent hazards upon the loading and unloading of school children onto and from the school bus. A small child is of limited visibility to the bus driver and a child's state of development, at an early age, may result in that child's inattention and/or lack of understanding of safety considerations pertinent to school bus loading and unloading.
A number of children have been fatally injured when, after unloading from a school bus or before loading, the bus began movement and struck the exiting or entering child. Often such injuries or fatalities occur when, after leaving a danger zone, a child returns to that danger zone to pick up a dropped book, to return to a friend, to greet a pet, or the like.
The prior art has proposed various devices in an attempt to reduce the risk of having any child, loading or unloading, becoming injured due to the untimely movement of the bus. Some of such prior art devices have comprised specially configured and arranged mirrors and system of mirrors by which, it was hoped, the bus driver could see the area in front of the bus and the areas at and alongside the sides of the bus. Such mirrors and systems of mirrors must be in proper adjustment to each other and to each driver as may then be driving the bus. One of the biggest problems with such mirrors and mirror arrangements is that the bus driver must still change from one mirror, or mirror system, to another mirror or mirror system in order to view the danger zones alongside the bus and in front of the bus. This, in turn, means that after making sure that no person is in a particular danger zone, the driver then must switch to a different mirror or mirror system in order to determine whether a person is in a different danger zone and, while thusly switching to such different mirror or mirror system, a person may again, without the driver's knowledge, enter into the said particular danger zone which was previously visually determined by the driver to be free of any person being therein. Further, the usefullness of any mirror or mirror system becomes seriously impaired if not totally useless during weather conditions of fog, rain, freezing rain or icing and by having mud splashed onto the mirror viewing surfaces.
The prior art has also proposed the use of television cameras, carried by the bus, and a television receiver monitor. The concept of such an arrangement is that the television cameras are intended to put into view those children which are in a danger zone or area while the monitor is intended to show such camera-detected child to the bus driver. However, such prior art television systems are afflicted with many of the same problems as exist and hereinbefore discussed with regard to prior art mirrors and mirror systems. That is, just as when the driver changes (in his viewing) from one mirror to another, so too the driver with a television monitor has the same problem. That is, with monitor switched to a first television camera and then determining that no children are in the danger zone shown by such first television camera, the driver then switches the monitor to receive the picture from a second television camera. During the time of thusly switching the monitor from the first television camera to the second television camera a child, unbeknownst to the driver, may again enter the danger zone shown by the first television camera. Further, adverse weather conditions also serve to render the television cameras at least undependable if not effectively useless.
The prior art has also proposed the use of mechanical arms and/or gates, carried by the bus, and intended to be actuated and swung to and from positions extending from the bus as to hopefully physically prevent the children from being in or moving into danger zones about the bus. Ironically, such prior art mechanical arms and/or gates have themselves caused significant physical injuries to the children.
The prior art has also proposed the providing of a generally air-filled forwardly situated deflectable bumper on the school bus and a generally air-filled rearwardly situated deflectable bumper on the school bus. In this arrangement it is intended that if an unseen child is situated, for example, in an area immediately forwardly of the forwardly situated air-filled deflectable bumper and the bus starts to move forwardly striking the child the resulting impact is supposed to be sufficient to cause a deflection of the air-filled deflectable forward bumper which, in turn, produces a pneumatic signal, from the impacted bumper to related sensory means intended to thereupon apply the bus brakes regardless of the bus operating action then undertaken by the driver. Such a system is immediately suspect as being a safe and useful system in that it requires the unseen child to be impacted by the air-filled bumper. Such an impact may itself cause injury to such child. Further, the pliability or deflectability of such air-filled bumpers must become reduced as the ambient temperature decreases and as ice may form upon such bumpers with each of such conditions causing any impact as between such bumper and unseen child to be of greater traumatic significance to that child.
Further, proposals have been made to provide a monitor (person) on the school bus so that the function of the monitor would be to make sure the children are safely away from the bus before the bus driver could again place the bus into motion. Even though such a monitor program has shown a significant reduction in injuries to children, it has become evident that: (1) enough people cannot be found to serve as monitors on school buses and (2) providing monitors on all school buses is too costly.
Except for various mirrors and systems of mirrors, it appears that other prior art safety systems have not been widely adopted, especially for use in combination with a school bus; and as for the prior art mirrors and systems of mirrors, as previously described, such still fail to provide, to the driver, a totally reliable indication of the presence or absence of a person from every area considered to be a danger zone.
Accordingly, the invention as herein disclosed is primarily directed to the solution of the aforestated as well as other related and attendant problems of the prior art.